In 2013, AMAC—The Association of Mature American Citizens—took a big step with the creation of the AMAC Foundation, Inc., a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit entity designed to serve Americans. The Foundation’s mission is to help protect and ensure the financial security, health, and social lives of current and future mature Americans, and to help Americans navigate the bewildering array of decisions they need to make.
The Foundation’s projects and plans include providing factual information that improves understanding of the positive value of Social Security and Medicare and the current and long-term challenges these programs face, as well as providing interpretations by Certified Social Security Advisors through AMAC publications, workshops, webinars, podcasts, and telephone support.
In addition, the Foundation serves all Americans in a variety of capacities, including provision of a source of education on the principles of American Free Enterprise, long-term retirement financial planning, and preparing for life—and potential employment—after retirement.
We invite you to learn more about the Foundation and its operations at www.AmacFoundation.org
I’m currently on SSDI. How will that affect my SSI? How will that affect my wife’s SSI?
Hi James,
If you are receiving both SSDI benefits and “SSI” (Supplemental Security Income), those benefits are coordinated (your SSDI will offset your SSI benefit). But if, by “SSI” you are referring to your regular Social Security retirement benefit, here’s what will happen:
If you are still collecting SSDI when you reach your full retirement age, your benefit at that time will automatically convert to become your regular Social Security retirement benefit. You won’t likely even notice it, because the benefit amount will stay exactly the same. And that’s because your current SSDI benefit is, essentially, your regular SS retirement benefit taken prior to your full retirement age (FRA). If you were born in 1960 or later, your FRA is 67. So you are, in effect, already getting the Social Security amount you’ve earned from a lifetime of working, but you’re getting it prior to your full retirement age on SSDI. Thus, there will be no change in your benefit amount when you attain FRA and your payments are automatically switched to be your regular SS retirement benefit.
As for your wife, you collecting SSDI (disability) has no effect on your wife’s own Social Security benefit. If she’s entitled to a spousal benefit from you, it will be based on your SSDI amount if you’re collecting that when your wife claims, or on your SS retirement benefit if you have reached your FRA when your wife claims. But the amount she receives as your spouse will be the same in either case. You wife, of course cannot claim benefits until she is at least 62, and if she claims at any age before her own FRA (67), her benefits – both her own and her spousal benefit if she is entitled to one – will be reduced. The only way your wife can avoid benefit reduction is by waiting until her FRA (67) to claim Social Security.
I hope this answers your question, but if you need more information please contact us directly at SSAdvisor@amacfoundation.org, or call us at 1.888.750.2622.
Russell Gloor
National Social Security Advisor
The AMAC Foundation